Cold Pity
by Lin-ZB
Summary: The story of the Dolorosa after the death of the Signless. This was heavily inspired by "Primary Colors" by RobotSquid over on AO3. PLEASE READ IT FIRST. TW: non-con/rape, abusive language, suicidal thoughts.
1. Chapter 1

The Dolorosa was not gifted with any talents particularly useful aboard a ship. She should have been confined to cleaning the deck, or perhaps the galley. But that was not her purpose. She was not just another slave.

Her quarters, her _private_ (with one exception) quarters, were located mere steps from Orphaner Dualscar's rooms, and had belonged to his previous pet lowblood. The Dolorosa wondered, upon her first entrance, who had been graced with such comparatively spacious quarters on the vile Orphaner's ship. The single jar of mind honey tucked between the recuperacoon informed her with a shock so strong it was nearly a physical blow. After that, she did her best to never think about where she was, or who she was with, or why she was with him.

The Orphaner was euphoric in the immediate aftermath of the execution, reveling in the Condesce's favor for quashing the largest rebellion on Alternia. However, when he realized that his actions had not actually inspired any form of relationship, much less a matespritship with her, he flew into a dark rage that the Dolorosa could only assume had been a hallmark of his personality for as many miserable centuries as he had lived.

The second time he came for her was worse than the first.

His moods were wildly erratic. In his rages, the Dolorosa was powerless, but when he attempted to woo her, he was possibly more terrifying. When he stormed into her quarters, she knew to shut herself down, distance herself from her body. But when she was summoned to his, it was always to some mockery of a polite meal and sweet conversation.

On those days, he taught her pleasure – an abominable, twisted pleasure that she abhorred as much her body delighted in. But she hated him then as much as she hated him when he thought only of himself and smiled at her screams. No matter what he did though, she was keenly aware of her status. She was his personal courtesan, concubine, mistress, prostitute. She was his pet _whore._

She loathed him with every fiber of her being when he was near her. But by herself, in the brittle privacy of her quarters, she remembered beautifully orated words about forgiveness and mercy. She remembered how desperately she had believed in them, and how wonderful they sounded when she saw the faces of lowblood trolls light up. And she tried to believe those words again, truly she did, but it was so difficult. She could not remember why forgiveness seemed like such a sweet ideal when she was moaning and straining and sobbing, nor could she imagine a world free of hatred when her blood throbbed with the most potent, dangerous loathing she had never imagined.

But the idea never left her. Even when she was bruised and bloody and gasping, her precious grub's words burned in her mind. They burned until she could not bear to ignore them any longer.

* * *

The Orphaner smashed her door open with his customary courtesy and dragged her, barely clad and bleary eyed, from her sopor slime. She was hardly awake before he slammed her against the wall and thrust his hips against hers; one hand squeezing her throat and the other dealing with his pants with a frantic trembling that betrayed his drunkenness just as effectively as his rank breath. The Dolorosa had long since stopped trying to be stoic during these surprise ministrations and whimpered softly.

"Oh yeah, you fuckin' like that, don't you?" Dualscar hissed. "Dirty fuckin' whore."

He released her throat to dig his nails into her lower back. He finally got his pants off and the Dolorosa turned her head away, but the invasive feeling of _him_ did not lessen. She didn't know what had happened to make him so irritable – she never did – but his mood was darker than it usually was. Probably someone had mentioned the Condesce.

Her distracted thoughts were forced back around to reality when he began to use his mouth in what he probably thought was a sensual way. The Dolorosa gritted her teeth and pressed her head against the wall, focusing on that pain in lieu of the rest on her body. Dualscar kept muttering curses between kiss-bites and somehow she noticed that they weren't directed at her. It sounded almost like he was talking to himself, but that couldn't be, because he had not been "a fuckin' impudent, shitfaced wriggler" for centuries. His words sounded an awful lot like the sick admonitions an adult troll would give a wiggler forced into concupiscence too early.

Dualscar finished for the moment, and leaned against her, breathing heavily, slime clinging to them both. In the calm, a particular lesson flashed through her mind about cycles of hatred and abuse, and how if one never knew kindness, one could never show it to others. She took a ragged breath.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"The fuck are you talking about?" he growled.

"I'm sorry that you were fucked as a wiggler," she said. Slowly, not believing herself, she lifted her hands from where they clenched against the wall and placed them on either side of the Orphaner's shocked face. "It must have hurt. You didn't understand why, but it hurt and it wasn't your fault – none of it was your fault."

He pulled away, anger masking terror that she was quick enough to see. "How- what the hell-"

"I'm sorry you had to suffer through that," she continued. "It wasn't fai-"

He had had enough. His fist cracked her jaw on impact and she hit the ground like a dead musclebeast.

"Don't you _ever_ talk to me like that again!" he roared. He stormed out of her quarters, leaving the Dolorosa motionless and aching, but deep in thought.


	2. Chapter 2

If the Dolorosa feared that she might be punished for speaking out of turn, she needn't have. The Orphaner and his kismesis had crossed paths again, and as usual, she held his complete attention.

Marquise Spinneret Mindfang cocked her head back and licked her lips deliberately as she surveyed the slaves in Dualscar's hold. The few that could meet her gaze shivered and looked away. She grinned and beckoned to one of her own crew.

"Take them all," she ordered. Her troll began tying the slaves' wrists together and not one of them complained. After all, the Marquise mused, she could hardly be a worse master than Dualscar.

She continued her stroll through the Orphaner's ship, haphazardly tossing her dice in one hand. She kicked open a few doors, but all of the crew that had been left aboard were dead already. Nearing Dualscar's quarters, she recalled his traitor psionic who had been snatched by the Condesce. Had he acquired a new one yet? She hadn't seen it, if he had.

The Marquise opened the door and stepped inside to find, not a psionic, but another slave sitting on the edge of the recuperacoon. She had probably broken into the room to save herself when the Gamblingnants boarded.

"Come on, slave," the Marquise ordered. "You belong to me now."

The slave did not move, but she frowned as if she was putting together a complex puzzle.

"I said, come!"

The Marquise was ready to seize the slave's mind, but she had risen to her feet and walked to the door. She did not say a word, but looked at her new master with dead eyes. The Marquise shrugged and walked out, listening to the quiet pad of the slave's feet beneath the raucous shouting of her crew.

Once back on deck, the slave was taken up with the others, and the Marquise turned her attention to an orderly evacuation of the ship. She wanted everyone off before Dualscar realized she was not, in fact, pillaging the nearby harbor as her spies had suggested. When he got back to his looted ship, he would know who had done it. No one else had the nerve.

The Dolorosa was almost grateful to be dragged into the hold with the rest of the slaves. On a new ship, she would be anonymous, just another slave to be worked beyond usefulness into death. It was peace she had hardly dreamed of.

One of the ceruleanbloods running the ship deftly untied her wrists and pointed her to an empty space between rows of crouched slaves. She moved to take it, but as she did, a rustblood who could barely walk in his exhaustion stumbled into her. A crust of bread fell from his hands as he tried to catch himself and failed. The Dolorosa picked it up and knelt next to the struggling troll. She opened her mouth to say "here," but her swollen jaw stopped her, so she merely offered it to him.

He stared at her with stunned eyes, and she managed the tiniest of smiles. Kindness, it seemed, was still appreciated. Just then, another crew member entered the hold.

"Mindfang wants a slave in her respiteblock, _now_," he said.

The ceruleanblood who had just cut the Dolorosa's bindings grabbed the back of her shift roughly and grunted, "Go."

The rustblood grabbed her hand and put his lips near hers. "It means you have to get her off while her kismesis watches," he whispered hurriedly as she was dragged away. Whatever feelings of hope the Dolorosa had been entertaining flooded away in a new wave of utter panic. She couldn't – not here, not again – not in front of _Dualscar_.

But she was halfway through the door of the Marquise's block before she regained her senses. And with her new owner nodding to her knowingly, there was nothing else she could do.

Dualscar's fury was immediate and overwhelming. The Marquise misinterpreted it and laughed.

"Why yes, Dualscar. She was one of the slaves in your hold until this very hour," the Marquise crooned. The Dolorosa stood in front of her, desperately staring at her own hands, as Dualscar made a disgusted noise behind her. And then, without meaning to, she reached forward and began to gently unbutton the Marquise's jacket.

Immediate horror filled her as she realized that she had not decided to do that. She did not know the first thing about putting on a sick show like this – she only knew how to lay still and endure. It was the Marquise, the Marquise could control her in ways more intimate than the Dolorosa had ever thought to fear. Her hands began to shake, but with the Marquise's firm insistence they did not stop working.

She could feel Dualscar's hatred prickling the back of her neck and she began to shake harder. What if he decided to take back what was his? What if the Marquise slipped away from him again and left her to take his fury? What would he do to her then? Unbidden, the image of burning handcuffs filled her mind and she knew that Dualscar was not above it. He had used her to torture her children, and he could use their memory to torture her.

The Marquise clasped her hands behind the Dolorosa's neck and made some comment about luck to Dualscar, who did not respond. From the unimpressed shrug the Marquise gave, he had left. The faint relief the Dolorosa felt was shattered when the Marquise focused her eyes on her own. She had heard rumors of the vision eightfold, but had not known what the physical manifestation would look like. And all eight pupils were dilated with anticipated pleasure. The Dolorosa found her hands tugging down the Marquise's petticoat even as her mind screamed at her to escape.

"Shush," the Marquise murmured, low and slow and sensual. "This is only for me – I won't hurt you."

The Dolorosa closed her eyes and held back a sob as the Marquise slid her hands to her shoulders and gently, almost lovingly, pushed her to her knees. And then, the Dolorosa's hands slid down the Marquise's stomach and began to press and tease between her new master's legs in ways that she had never thought to do. The Marquise sucked in a sharp breath and wrapped her hands around the tender base of the Dolorosa's horns, squeezing and releasing them in time to the rhythm she set for her slave's hands.


	3. Chapter 3

"Fuuuuuuuuck," the Marquise gasped. "The pail-" She pointed weakly at a corner of her block. The slave turned, distracted, but it was too late. The Marquise knew herself too well, and she did not like to postpone gratification. The slave looked up, horrified, as the Marquise's slurry soaked through her shift.

The Marquise leaned back against the wall, breathing heavily and grinning. "Sorry," she panted. "But my color looks good on you." The slave, released from the Marquise's mind control, had turned away. Her trembling was lessening slowly, but the shock and the disgust did not fade from her face.

"Hey," the Marquise cradled her slave's cheek in one hand, "that wasn't soooooooo bad, was it?"

Her tone was remarkably soothing, and the slave shook her head slightly.

"Alright, then let's get these dirty rags off you."

The slave's eyes went wide, frightened, and then very, very cold. She gripped the edge of her shift and lifted it over her head in a single movement. She was no longer shaking. Curiously, the Marquise made her linger as she pulled off her rough-spun girdle, and the trembling immediately resumed.

"But you're not fighting it," the Marquise murmured, leaning close to her new lover. "Why do you shiver so?"

The slave looked at her with the same dead eyes she had on Dualscar's ship. "I have done so much against my will," she whispered. "I desire to do nothing but die peacefully." No intonations, no quiver of emotion in that voice. The Marquise squinted thoughtfully.

"Dualscar's slave, huh."

"Yes."

And the Marquise could feel a hot, tight ball of hatred, purer than any black romance, even without probing the slave's mind. But it vanished as soon as it appeared, and the slave closed her eyes, exhaling through her nose.

The Marquise stepped back, surveying her new prize, and saw exactly what had spurred such deep hate. Bruises and scratches covered the slave's body, some fresh enough to reveal her jade blood. And on her thighs, hips, and lower stomach the marks of abuse grew darker and more numerous. The slave stood with her legs slightly too far apart, the Marquise realized. Not for any anatomical difference in her hips, but from the repeated and violent injury of her nook.

"I have made Dualscar very, very angry," the Marquise said softly, "on many, many occasions."

"Yes," the slave replied dully. "You have."

"I did not know he went back to you. You must hate me."

"I don't hate you."

The Marquise scoffed. "You lie. How can you not? I know how Dualscar is; he must have punished you for every insult I ever gave him and made sure you knew it."

"He did. But I don't hate you."

The Marquise scoffed again, hiding her uneasiness. A quick touch of the slave's mind revealed the truth - no hatred smoldered beneath the surface. She narrowed her eyes and seized the slave by the throat, sharp nails digging into the soft skin. She would not restrict breathing- not yet.

"You don't hate me. Fine," she hissed. "Then tell me, _slave_, what do you think of me?"

"I pity you."

The Marquise was thunderstruck. "What?"

"I pity you."

The slave's voice was calm and unafraid. She betrayed no trace of pain, despite the trickles of blood that dripped from her neck.

"Is that so?" the Marquise hissed. She closed her hand tighter around the slave's throat, savoring the involuntary choke for air. "You pity me, in my power, in my luck? You pity me because I _own _you?"

"I pity you because you cannot-" the slave gasped "-you cannot live with yourself."

The Marquise released her and the slave sank against the wall, coughing and choking on her own saliva. What she learned from Dualscar?

"I can't live with myself," she said coldly.

"No." The slave drew a labored breath. "You constantly defeat others to prove to yourself your own worth, even though you know your luck makes it nearly impossible for you to lose. You cannot settle in one place because you think nobody will accept you. You surround yourself with cutthroats and slaves who either do not care about your bloodthirsty ways or cannot protest them-"

The Marquise slapped the slave across her jaw. "Silence!"

The slave obeyed, but did not remove her gaze from her captor. The Marquise glared at her slave, hating her, hating her pity, her calm eyes, her cool logic in the face of threats. Then all at once, the hatred vanished, and the Marquise laughed.

"I guess I pity you too. You think yourself better than me, when all you really are is deluded. You think you know the mind of a blueblood, when your filthy swill had you spend your life under a rock handling fuckjuice. Oh, my poor, deluded slave, who pities _me_." She stepped away and then immediately back to face the slave. "Well then, what shall we do with this mutual pity?" She rubbed one hand along the inside of the slave's thigh, long nails gently dragging at the skin. She felt the slave shudder beneath her touch, but the slave's eyes never once wavered from her own, and her voice never failed.

"I don't think it matters what I say."

"No," the Marquise hummed, maliciously content. "It doesn't."


	4. Chapter 4

The Dolorosa had hoped for death. The Marquise was volatile enough to kill her - that much she had learned from Dualscar's filthy tongue. But the fury her unasked-for pity had spurred was too easily quelled by Mindfang's love of irony and games. Of course, she was still punished. Seatrolls always punished insubordination, no matter how amusing.

The Marquise's idea of punishment, however, was endlessly more precise and exquisitely horrible than anything Dualscar could have dreamed up. The Dolorosa's body was first wrenched from her control and given ecstasy she had never experienced. The Marquise had dallied in many romances over the sweeps, and her knowledge of physical pleasure far exceeded Dualscar's. She was almost loving.

The Dolorosa's mind, however, was free to understand the malice with which the Marquise used her - to hear the insults, threats, and declarations of control that her _master_ breathed into her ear like sweet nothings.

When the physical part was through, and the Dolorosa knelt, shuddering, with a cold pail pressed between her thighs, and she thought that nothing could be worse than this, the Marquise made her cry. She reached into her head and ripped out every tightly compacted memory of hurt that she had locked down where she could never think of it. The Dolorosa had learned to live with her past by ignoring it – recalling it was too much. The Marquise relished in her old grief made fresh.

Cradling her slave, the Marquise whispered words of comfort that ate into her mind like the sharpest acid. Reminding her of the pain and telling her to forget it, telling her she was safe from Dualscar's abuse now, but hinting that her own could be worse.

At first the recollections the Marquise dredged were things that Dualscar had done, and the Marquise enjoyed that – she could feel the Marquise in her mind, enjoying her pain – but once she found out _why_ the Orphaner had chosen the jadeblood as his personal whore, her glee could not be contained.

In between gut-wrenching sobs, the Dolorosa heard the Marquise gasp.

"You were part of that rebellion?" she asked breathlessly, eagerly, cruelly. "Oh, darling, that is terrible." She rubbed her long-nails in a mockery of a caress down the Dolorosa's spine. "I cannot imagine how awful that must have been."

But she could imagine, because she was forcing the Dolorosa to relive it, from the attack on the warehouse to the Signless's execution, and every excruciating moment in between. She sobbed still harder, wailing now, because the pain had been bad enough the first time and the only reason she was still alive is because she thought that she would never have to go through it again but here it was and it was worse than before because she knew what would happen next and no, no you can't, please he's my grub he's my grub he's my grub-

She broke into a ragged shriek, and finally, blessedly, the Marquise let her go. She huddled around herself, moaning into her arms, broken, empty, and defeated. The Marquise kissed her forehead and lowered her body to the floor and stepped away. If the Dolorosa had been in any condition to see, she would have noticed the thin sheen of sweat and the shaky breathing the Marquise just could not mask. She might also have heard the Marquise try to whisper something that sounded suspiciously like "sorry."

* * *

Soon, another slave was summoned to bring a new shift for the pretty jadeblood and return her to the hold. The Marquise sank into her recuperacoon and leaned her head against the edge, allowing the soothing slime to creep up her neck.

She had only meant to remind the slave of their differences – put her back in her place. Even if their dalliance was red, a lowblood should not be able to truly pity a highblood. Maybe on some futile idea that since a highblood had more responsibility, they were under more stress, but every highblood knew that responsibility really meant freedom to kill whomever whenever they wanted without care. That slave had known far, far too much about her – all the Marquise had wanted to prove that it was the slave who was really pitiable. That was all.

She had counted on physical suffering to do the job, but she had gotten greedy and tried to drive the point home. If the slave could be brought to her lowest point, the Marquise would seem like a savior for any simple mercy. It was an easy tactic, and one the Marquise had used numerous times. But she had never encountered a troll who had loved so passionately.

And it was not even romance! Somehow, this jadeblood slave, this Rosa – her memories revealed her name – had loved the mutant freak who had threatened the Condesce. She had loved him with everything in her, would have done anything for him, and asked for nothing. Wanted nothing, but to see him live happily. To see that level of devotion was unsettling, but to watch it crumble and burn shook the Marquise to her very core. It was no wonder her slave was so cold when left alone. There was nothing left inside her.

The Marquise shuddered and tried to sink further into the slime. She did not need this – whatever awful emotion this was. She had a horrible suspicion that it was guilt, and actual, fully-flushed pity, but she refused to acknowledge it. The slave was back in the hold, and the Marquise would deal with her once she had slept off her emotional confusion.

But she was having trouble sleeping.


	5. Chapter 5

The Dolorosa slumped against the hull of the ship, with her hands in her lap and her head down. She was trembling. She felt that she might never stop. The rustblood who had warned her what being summoned by the Marquise meant found her again and sat wordlessly.

"I think she likes you," he said hollowly after a long silence.

"She does."

That was all there was to it. The rustblood gave her a single pat on the shoulder and they resumed their respective thoughts.

The Dolorosa was raw. She could not even bring herself to hate the Marquise, much less forgive her. There was nothing left to do the hating or the forgiving. The good news was that she could probably look on Dualscar without any residual fear – it was the effect of opening up and cleaning a particularly putrid, festering wound. Disgusting and horrifically painful, yes, but leaving the wound clean and ready to heal. The Orphaner was just another victim of the vicious cycle of violence Alternia bred.

With what portion of her mind remained, the Dolorosa wished she could say the same about the Marquise. She didn't hate her, no, but she feared her. She desperately feared her. It was a primal, bestial fear that left no room for reason and could make her do anything, anything at all. And the Dolorosa knew, when she dwelt on that fear, that the Marquise had won. No matter what happened next, the Dolorosa was her slave – she would always obey her master. That train of thought followed, she was startled to discover tears dripping into her hands. Her shaking was unabated.

The rustblood had placed his hand on her shoulder again and was tracing a circle with his palm. He was whispering dull words of comfort to accompany the warmth of his solid hand. She leaned away from him, but he did not notice or did not care and continued rubbing her shoulder. Eventually, her world faded to that single sensation, and she slept.

The next night, the slaves were called out to work. The Dolorosa was among them, receiving no special consideration. For this she might have been grateful, but the work was hard and she was still shaking. Her tremors were barely visible, but that did not stop them from steering her hand erratically when she tried to scrub the deck with the rest. The others looked at her, too tired to glare, and moved on.

It was nearly midnight when the Marquise stepped out on the deck, resplendent in her feathered hat and red boots. Every slave ceased their work and pressed against the rails of the ship. They looked at their feet.

The Marquise strolled across her ship with her customary confidence. Not so customary was the jerk of her head as she passed one bowed head with mismatched horns.

"What is she doing up here?" she snapped.

The overseer wiped his brow. "Pardon, my lady?"

"The jadeblood!" The Marquise grabbed the overseer by his collar. "Why is she out here? Can't you see she's fucking exhausted? Or are your eyes just so much hoofbeast shit embedded in your thick skull?"

The overseer – a brownblood – scowled furiously. "I will remove her immediately."

"I'll do it myself," the Marquise said. "You're too imbecilic to live." She waved a hand at the Dolorosa. "Come."

She came.

* * *

For once in her life, the Marquise was unsure of herself. She wanted to say something to her slave, but what? She could not even decide if she should look at her. The plan had been to show the slave pity, even mercy, after putting her in her place. But the same irrational guilt that had kept the Marquise up last night ruined her surety and she did not know how to act.

In the end, she treated the slave as she would any other, and escorted her silently to the empty room that sometimes served as a sickbay. At least, it was meant to serve as a sickbay. The Marquise could not recall the last time she had allowed a slave to rest in lieu of culling them. She got a hold of herself just enough to speak before she left.

"Sleep here," she said briskly. "We'll see if you're fit to work tomorrow."

She shut the door on the slave, who was turning with vague puzzlement on her face.

* * *

The Dolorosa had been ordered to sleep, so she slept. It was marginally better than the restless doze she had achieved in the hold, crowded in amongst the other slaves and unable to stretch her legs. Her tired body seemed to stick to the floor as soon as she lay down, and sleep came quickly.

When she woke up, not knowing how much time had passed, she refused to open her eyes. Refused, that is, until the door creaked open. Believing it to be the Marquise, she jumped unsteadily to her feet and was only just able to register the harpoon that shot through her stomach and nailed her to the wall before she began to scream.

* * *

Bleeding from the stomach is a slow and painful death. The Marquise had inflicted it on many an enemy. It was useful in reminding them, in their last moments, how utterly she had triumphed. And, every once in a while, she did it just to treat herself to their screams, which soothed her bloodlust.

By the time she had reached her slave, however, the screaming was done. The harpoon had ripped straight through the slave's body and into a wooden crossbeam, where it had stuck deep enough to hold the slave's body in a half-upright position. Jade blood had soaked through her shift in a grisly cascade and dripped down her legs in a mockery of tenderness, puddling between her calloused feet.

The Marquise shrieked with fury as her eyes traced the harpoon, immediately recognizing its source. Dualscar had never been one for subtlety.


End file.
